Suit Alleges Prejudice In St. Louis Voting System

ST. LOUIS — A former alderman is suing St. Louis` election board and the city council president, charging that the city`s computerized voting system discriminates against black voters.

Michael Roberts filed the suit against Thomas Villa and the election board after Villa beat Roberts in the March Democratic primary for the council presidency by 171 votes.

The suit raises questions about Votomatic, the computerized voting system used in St. Louis and dozens of other cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta. If U.S. District Judge William Hungate decides that the system discriminates against minorities, the cities using Votomatic could be forced to design new voting systems.

``This suit could be important and very disruptive,`` said Ray James of the Missouri secretary of state`s office. That office has filed a brief defending the Votomatic system.

Frank Parker, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers`

Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, agreed.

``This could open the door for a lot of suits,`` Parker said. ``I don`t know of any court decision (related to voting rights) that has been based on a voting procedure issue.`` Most cases challenge electoral structures, like purges (from voter lists) and gerrymandering. If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, it will be an important precedent.``

Central to Roberts` allegations is that 2,864 votes were not counted in the March election because they had been improperly cast, and that the bulk of those discounted votes came from the city`s predominantly black North Side wards.

Some ballots were invalidated because voters ``undervoted,`` that is, they voted for no candidate in a citywide office. Others ``overvoted,``

punching holes for opposing candidates. Some cards were merely dented but not pierced, making them illegible to the computer; others were inserted in the voting machine upside down.

Roberts alleges that a similar pattern of discounting more ballots from black wards than white wards existed in three previous citywide races dating to 1981.

Roberts brought the suit under the federal Voting Rights Act, alleging that the computerized system amounts to a modern-day literacy test because it requires voters to understand how a computer reads the ballots.

``The way they used to do it was to make blacks guess how many pennies were in a gallon jug,`` Roberts said. ``If you could do that, then you could vote. Now, they`re using a high-tech computer system. They say, `Read the fine print, and use the stylus.` ``

Leonard Garvin, the attorney defending the city`s election board, agreed that undervoting and overvoting occurred. But he says that such practices have not always cut against black voters.